


"I Know."

by QueenMae_theGay



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, basically just gay crap, it's ok tho i still love them, my boys???, they're such a mess holy shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 23:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenMae_theGay/pseuds/QueenMae_theGay
Summary: Uhh (sorry for being so inactive, yikES), basically:- timing: not rlly important. Keith is back from the Blades, Shiro isn't dead/MIA, Keith pilots Black, and the Castle is in one piece. If there's a time in the canon all that happens, thats when this is. But it doesn't (as usual) really matter- setting: the castle. couple lil flashbacks to a battle somewhere.- in other news: Klance is a trainwreck. I love them.Keith got hurt in a fight, but won't make a big deal out of it. Lance calls him out on his bullshit, but while he's patching him up, Keith brings up another fight from a few weeks back. 1,600 words later, they kiss.





	"I Know."

Lance took one look at him and saw straight through his bullshit. 

 

“You’re hurt.” 

 

Keith frowned. “I’m fine, Lance.”

 

It had been a rough day. Pidge had taken a shot to the chest on what was supposed to be a diplomatic mission, and Keith had been stuck defending her until the rest of the team had swooped in. She was fine now, resting in a healing pod. Keith had insisted he was fine, that he hadn’t been hurt. 

 

Hunk had dropped it. So had Coran and Allura. Shiro was off on a mission of his own with Matt and the Rebels. He figured he’d gotten away with the lie. It wasn’t that he wanted to be injured, they just had bigger things to worry about. 

 

Lance took his hand, noticing the way Keith winced, and steered him into a chair. “You’re not. Don’t move.” 

 

With a sigh and another weak protest, Keith sat. 

 

The smile Lance offered him made being taken care of almost worth it.

 

He pulled a roll of bandages from a first aid kit, spreading the rest of the supplies in front of them. “Your wrist again?”

 

“One day,” Keith grumbled, “you’re going to teach me how you do that.”

 

Two weeks ago, he had fallen from a ledge during a fight and shattered his wrist. At the same time, he’d been nearly knocked out from the force of the blow that pushed him over the edge. Lance had found him, saved his ass, and gotten him into a healing pod. 

 

Lance offered a smile as he knelt next to the chair. “I know you well enough to tell if you’re injured.” 

 

Keith nodded, his mind still stuck in the battle of the day. He was silent for a moment as Lance lifted his arm and gently wrapped up his wrist. “When I broke my wrist. And you had to get my ass out of there. You acted like it was no big deal.”

 

Lance laughed. “It wasn’t a big deal, Mullet. You were hardly awake, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with you when you’re like that.” He passed the gauze around Keith’s wrist again. 

 

Keith frowned a little. Lance was holding something back. And he was… blushing? He mentally shook himself. “It was a big deal,” he pressed. “I had to do the same thing today, Lance. And the whole time I was watching over Pidge, I couldn’t stop thinking that I never thanked you for saving me. And I didn’t want to die without thanking you.” 

 

“You’re not going to die.” Something sharpened in Lance’s voice. 

 

Keith just sighed. “I hope not.” 

 

Abruptly, Lance tied off the bandage and stood, packing away the first aid kit. “Do you remember anything of the rescue?” 

 

“Today?”   
  


“No. When I pulled you out when you broke your wrist.” His back was to Keith - like he didn’t want Keith to read his expression. 

 

He figured it was safer to tell the truth. “No. I remember falling, and then you were there, and you asked if I was ok, and I knew I would be because you were there. And then I was waking up in a healing pod.” 

 

Lance let out a deep sigh. It sounded a little like the word  _ typical _ . And then he left the room, without once looking back. 

 

Keith followed him.

 

***

 

“Lance?”

 

They were half a hallway away now, and he didn’t turn when Keith called his name. He did stop walking, though. Keith took that as a good sign. 

 

“Lance, what am I not remembering? What happened?”   
  


He took a deep breath. Keith watched, a few steps away, as his shoulders rose and fell again. Finally, finally, Lance turned around. 

 

“I was halfway across the building, standing on the roof. Lookout and sniper. I saw the moment everything went wrong.” He closed his eyes, like for a moment he was back in the heat of battle, the ground shaking and their allies being swarmed by Galra soldier. The piercing scream of alarms rang through the air, and the building below him was rapidly coming awake, more and more soldiers appearing with each passing second. “You were almost clear when they overwhelmed you. I picked off as many as I could without risking hurting you, but then it was too dangerous. I watched you fall, and I couldn't do anything. And then you were down, and the fact that our forces were losing stopped meaning anything.”

 

“Lance…” 

 

He didn’t seem to hear. “I jumped off the roof and didn’t get my jetpack going until I was halfway to the ground. It didn’t matter. Once you were down, I killed the soldiers around you quick enough.” 

 

Keith didn’t miss the way his voice turned flat as he said the word ‘killed’, or how his eyes were still half-closed, like the weeks-old-battle was more real than the hallway. 

 

“And then I finally got to you, and you were conscious, but your wrist was bent and leaking blood, and all I could think to ask was, ‘Keith, are you ok?’”

 

Keith nodded. He remembered that. 

 

Lance’s voice was impossibly sad now. “Do you know how you answered?”

 

“No.” Somehow, it felt like a betrayal of trust to admit that. 

 

“You said, ‘I am now that you’re here,’ and I said, ‘What the hell does that mean?’ And you looked at me, Keith, like… God, I don’t even know what. And you said you would tell me once I came back to get you. You would tell me once I got out.” 

 

His eyes opened now, and Lance looked like he might cry. Instead, he reached for Keith’s bandaged wrist. 

 

“This was your only injury that I could see while we were talking. You’d taken a couple of hard hits but this was all I could see that was wrong. And you expected - I could see in your eyes - that you expected me to leave you. To fight my own way out. Which I would never, ever, do.” For all the conviction in his words, Lance still wouldn’t meet Keith’s eyes. “I was supposed to guard everyone’s backs. Make sure you all had a way out. And I didn’t. To get you out.”

 

“We all got out, though, Lance.”

 

He nodded. “I know. But if Pidge had gone down next, or Hunk, or Matt and his rebels had gotten trapped, they would have been counting on me to get them out. And I couldn’t leave you, even though your only injury looked like it was only a hurt wrist.”

 

Keith nodded, though, slowly. “I wouldn’t have left you either.” 

 

That earned a small smile. “I know. You were fading in and out of consciousness by that point, and I realized you really did need me to get you out. I figured it would be safer to carry you than try to get you to walk to Red. But it was Black who grabbed us. She caught me in the air, halfway to Red, and brought us all the way back to the Castle. I had you halfway into the healing pod - I thought you were completely blacked out by then - when you grabbed my shoulder.” There was a knot of emotion in his voice that Keith didn’t know how to read. 

 

“And then I asked you why you hadn’t left, and when you didn’t answer, I said, ‘I  **_know_ ** .’, like I had just figured out the truth of the universe, and I leaned towards you and I wanted to… I don’t know what I wanted, Lance, but I passed out for real before I could figure it out.” Keith’s smile was small, but it was there. 

 

“Thought you didn’t remember?”

 

“I told you. I remembered waking up in a healing pod. I didn’t say if I was healed yet or not.” 

 

“Asshole.” But Lance had a ghost of a smile now, too.

 

“I’m sorry. I really wasn’t lying about the middle part. I don’t remember any of that. But I needed to know…” He broke off mid-sentence, trying to ignore his blush. Avoiding looking at Lance. 

 

Lance’s smile grew. Gently, he lifted his free hand to Keith’s face, tilting his chin up. “C’mon, look at me, Mullet.” 

 

“You chose now to make fun of my hair?”

 

Lance grinned. “There’s my Keith.” He blushed when he realized what he had said. 

 

Keith just nodded, taking a little step forward. Towards Lance. “I think I still owe you a thank-you.” 

 

“Anytime, Mullet.” 

 

Keith’s smile grew, so much so that Lance realized for the first time - 

 

“You have dimples!” 

 

And then Keith laughed and blushed a little harder. “There’s my Lance.”

 

They stood for a moment like that, Lance’s hand on Keith’s chin, his other hand cradling Keith’s wrist. Keith watched his face intently, like it was the most important thing in his universe. At that moment, it was. But it was only when he saw Lance’s eyes flicker to his mouth, for just a split second, that Keith realized the enormity of this. 

 

“Are you going to kiss me, or are you just gonna stare at me until I do it for you?”

 

Lance laughed, but it was a low, private laugh that Keith felt more than heard in the small space between them. “As tempting as that is, I think the second option sounds pretty good, too.”

 

“You need to learn when to stop talking, sharpshooter.” 

 

And then, before Lance could pull together another sarcastic comment, Keith lifted his uninjured hand to the back of Lance’s neck and kissed him. 

 

It may have been hours or seconds that they stood there, but when they broke apart, Lance was still talking. 

 

“Since when are you taller than me?”

 

“Since I became cooler and more  _ grizzled _ .” 

 

Lance pouted. “No need to be rude.” 

 

Keith kissed him again. “No need to keep talking, either.” 

 

And really, as much as he talked, there was nothing Lance could say to that. 


End file.
